LeWeb London '13: My Search for Digital Hippies

I was expecting the buzzing energy of a new economy, excited entrepreneurs, digital hippies and a mix of executives and academics interested in this whole "sharing" thing. Instead, I was met with the icy exterior of British culture - I kept smiling at people and they'd look away! And upon walking into the conference, I was also met by security guards at the bottom of the staircase, frantically scanning badges with a black light to protect against fraud. I was starting to feel that this was more of a show than anything.

Nevertheless, my interest was in staying up-to-date with the sharing economy for the book, It's a Shareable LIfe that I'm co-authoring as well as connecting with others pushing the movement forward. Thus, I snapped myself out of the fact that I wasn't in Kansas (read: San Francisco) anymore and looked for familiar or interesting faces. Upon arriving to the main hall at LeWeb London, I almost immediately bumped into Bernie and Yiannis, the tag team I was to collaborate on covering the conference with. They were a sarcastic, witty, immediately upbeat pair - As soon as I latched onto them, I felt a piece of my own hesitance drift away.

The sessions were good - nothing riveting that I hadn't heard before, but they covered the current state of affairs in the sharing economy. From the likes of Airbnb co-founder, Joe Gebbia to Larry Harvey, the founder of Burning Man - the main stage was jam packed with the movers and the shakers. And the audio visual technology was nothing short of impressive - you can see for yourself on the 38 videos recorded. Being at LeWeb was truly like being in a TV recording studio.

While I wanted to see more wholesome talks that offered unparalleled transparency and learning such as the session with Etsy founder, Chad Dickerson, many of the conference go-ers were "VP of Innovation" types that seemed to be having aha moments as taking peer-to-peer business practices and the ideology of access over ownership could really help their respective organizations stay current.

Fittingly, the last speech was given by the OuiShare founders - Antonin Leonard and Benjamin Tincq - who encouraged the audience to pay attention to what's happening in Europe as well as how to sustain the movement by building community between citizens, entrepreneurs and local governments.

What did I learn? Ridesharing in Europe is going gangbusters (BlaBlaCar has 3 million users and Liftshare does 100,000 rides a day in the UK alone) and there is more of a cultural precedence for sharing - so adoption seems to be faster. While most of the investment into peer-to-peer startups comes from the U.S., there are many European companies doing interesting things that sound impossible, like sharing leftovers! Shareyourmeal.net for example, has faciliated over 70,000 shared meals in the Netherlands and is now coming to San Francisco and New York City. And what about the digital hippies? While they were hard to find at LeWeb, I think they are a core user group of the sharing economy. I realize that the word 'hippie' might not work for everyone, but I believe the digital revolution is led by a new way of thinking - hippie or not.

In the end, I was satisfied. From couch crashing with my friends and the founders of peer-to-peer language translation software startup Babelverse to sharing a meaningful meal with the folks from OuiShare, my time in London was complete. Next stop - Casa Netural for some destination coworking in rural Southern Italy to scout the next location for Startup Abroad.